Coughing episode in Lambertville prompts Hazmat response

LAMBERTVILLE — A restaurant and bar was evacuated and a county Hazmat team called in yesterday evening, police reported, because people started coughing.

Twenty-eight people were evacuated from Bell's Tavern shortly after 6:30 p.m. Police said that patrons believed an odorless substance caused people to start coughing.

They were taken to the nearby Columbia firehouse, where they were checked by the Lambertville-New Hope rescue squad. Police said that each refused further treatment.

Police said that no problems were found and firemen used fans to air out the restaurant and bar.

The incident is not as unusual as it may seem.

"Humans aren't the rational creatures that we fancy ourselves to be. We're often beasts of the herd," Robert Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, told NBC News. "We yawn when other people yawn. We laugh when other people laugh. And we cough when other people cough."

Tadhgh Rainey heads the county Division of Public Health Services, which was involved in the Hazmat response. He confirmed that the air was tested for toxins and that nothing was found.

Sometimes, he said, such incidents are the result of a prank. "Someone could have sprayed pepper spray and walked out the door," he said.

About five years ago he remembers a Hazmat team responding to a pizzeria and discovering that someone had been working with pepper flakes that got into the air enough to spark coughing and eye irritation throughout the restaurant. Rainey couldn't remember the last time that Hazmat, firemen and rescue workers were called out on this type of scale without a known cause.

The result, Rainey said, is a "no win, all around. You react, realize nothing is wrong, and you may become desensitized to it. Then you may not call the next time when something really is wrong."